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Root Rooted but can't figure out how to get S-Off

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erkang

Newbie
I'm relatively new to rooting though not a total novice. I have my HTC Evo 4g rooted but I still have S-On. I understand that I need S-Off in order to flash roms. If that's true (and I only _THINK_ it's true) I'm stuck.

I'm reluctant to unroot so that I can then re-root in order to get S-Off.
Is there a way to get what I need without unrooting the phone? Do I, in fact, really NEED S-Off?

Thanks
 
erkang said:
I'm relatively new to rooting though not a total novice. I have my HTC Evo 4g rooted but I still have S-On. I understand that I need S-Off in order to flash roms. If that's true (and I only _THINK_ it's true) I'm stuck.

I'm reluctant to unroot so that I can then re-root in order to get S-Off.
Is there a way to get what I need without unrooting the phone? Do I, in fact, really NEED S-Off?

Thanks
Click to expand...

no you do not need soff to flash roms. if you are s-on and have a custom recovery then you should be fine.

no need to unroot.

here is the guide you want:http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-all...-rooting-gingerbread-2-3-5-dummies-guide.html use the captain's method to get fully s-off if you want....though it is not necessary.
 
erkang said:
Wow!! Thanks so much. Somewhere along the line I got the impression that without S-Off I was doomed. I'm off to play in ROM-land. Again, thanks
Click to expand...

nope you are not doomed....LOL......s-on works for most peeps.....the only thing is that you can't update your radios with s-on.....so long as you are up to date with those then you are fine......i doubt we will get any more updates anyways.
 
I got Cyanogen installed easily enough but I obviously missed a couple of things along the line. There are two problems.

1. Playstore. It seems, doesn't come on Cyanogen. OK, no biggie. I've got it installed from elsewhere and when I go to use it I'm asked to add an account. That seems pretty straightforward. It offers me the opportunity to configure an Exchange account. Don't I need to be able to add a Google account rather than an Exchange account? I can't get it to take my Google account. Clearly I'm missing something here. Do you have any idea what?

2. I have all my apps backed up on the SD card but I can't figure out how to install them. I would have thought it would be pretty straightforward but it doesn't seem to be. Again, the answer is probably pretty simple but I've not been able to find it.

Thanks again for your help. I hope that after this question I won't need to bother you again.
 
No bother at all:)
With CM and other roms based on AOSP, you need to flash what is called GAPPS.
That is another .zip file with the google apps in them.
There should be a link to the Gapps .zip on the site where you downloaded the rom.
Now, there are different gapps packages depending on the rom version.
Can you provide the link to the rom download site and we can help pick the correct gapps package:)
 
I've been crashing and bashing around so much lately in my quest that I can't really remember where I got the rom from. I do know that I installed it with RomManager.

As for reinstalling my old apps, I have a backup from a few days ago. I assume, though, that if I restore that I'll revert to the original rom. What I want, of course, is to have my old apps restored but to keep Cyanogen. My guess is that's not possible though.
 
Well, first of all, using RomManager to flash roms is not recommended. I would suggest flashing roms and other things thru recovery.
In the link that OCN provided, in the second post, there are instructions on how to flash:)

Anyways, putting your old apps in the CM rom is not possible, sorry:(

There is another app called Titanium Backup that can save your apps/data to restore when new roms are flashed, but that is another discussion:)

What recovery do you have? I assume AmonRa?
 
yeah stay away from rom manager. it is more of a headache then it is worth....the same goes for clockwork mod recovery(cwm).....that recovery just does not wipe well and will cause more issues. amon ra or smelkus are the two recoveries that i would choose. the guide i linked to earlier will have info on how to switch recoveries.

i actually go into it more in this guide here:http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-all...ooting-dummies-guide-gingerbread-edition.html just skip down to the after root section.

edit: hey mikey rom manager is the front end for cwm. it will not work with amon ra......just so you know;)
 
So, I followed the instructions you up in the second post and everything was going along just fine, although it's using clockwork recovery. The backup was going along ... boot, recovery images, system, data, android_secure, and cache.
Then it said, "No sd-ext found. Skipping backup of sd-ext.
Then it said, "Generating md5 sum ..." and froze. It's been like that for over an hour now. I'm going to sleep soon but I'll leave the phone charger plugged in just in case the phone is engaged in some very long slow process. Perhaps I should just go back to the start and put the phone back to factory settings. That feels a bit extreme though.

The main thingnI've learned so far is that Android is pretty solid and the danger of bricking is probably overstated.
 
The skipping of the sd-ext is fine if your sd card is not partitioned...no worries there.
But now being stuck is not normal.
You have not wiped anything yet correct?
I would surmise you can pull the battery and reboot without losing anything.
 
Yup. You're right. I pulled the battery and have rebooted into the stock rom. I've been able to remove most of the bloatware which was my original intent in getting rooted. Other than having the annoying habit of interrupting me with a screen showing recent applications while I'm using the Kindle app I'm more or less content with how it performs.

I'll explore the world of custom roms but it seems pretty hard to get decent reviews. There's a ton of them out there and I'm not about to try all! Reviews sure would help. For me one important aspect of a rom is the visual appearance. Do you know of any sites that might have screen shots of various roms?

At the risk of repetition, thanks for all your help and for your patience.
 
You can check out this link for the different roms along with the "Staff Picks"
http://androidforums.com/evo-4g-all-things-root/618281-list-utilities-apps-roms-kernels-og-evo.html

Now as far as Sreenshots of the rom, those don't do it justice as you can flash themes and install fonts and use different launchers to make it look totally different than what is pictured. :)

I used to run MikG 3.11 and had it themed out, looking really really cool, but the support for themes for MikG has stopped and some of the themes have been taken down over at the MikG site:( Sad, really because the theme I had was awesome:(

Anyways, I recommend Decks Reloaded. Highly customizable, and theme-able etc. :)
 
My apologies for not getting back to all you helpful people with a progress report. I've decided that I'm pretty happy with the stock rom now that I have the ability to remove almost all of the bloatware. Once I started playing around with roms I quickly realized that tinkering with the phone could easily become something of an obsession. It would be fun and I'm very tempted but I know myself too well. I'm gonna stick with what I have for the time being. I think that just having had your help in getting rooted has given me 95% of what I wanted. Experience tells me that getting that final 5% can take much longer and be much harder than getting the first 95% and isn't necessarily worth it ... at least not for me. ... right now ... (but ya never know what the future holds. So, once again, many thanks.
 
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